I absolutely LOVE this way of looking at the potato harvest! I’ve done my fair share of digging potatoes from the garden, even lifting them out of the ground by hand, but it never occurred to me to look at the process as a birth of sorts. Thanks for opening my eyes. Potatoes will never be the same!

I loved harvesting potatoes. It always made me think of my great-grandmother, who fled Ireland during the potato famine. I once turned a kids’ sandbox into a potato bed – they are so hardy, they grew big and strong.

I like this, Colleen. There is something about using one’s hands. More personal to actually feel the potatoes as you are taking them from the ground. It sounds like you have a personal relationship with them. I understand that. Your poem gave me ‘food’ for thought!!

Wow! Such a wonderful parallel created through the channels of new birth and harvest — the imagery of digging around in “the musty dark soil/mounded up like swollen bellies” is plain wonderful. I loved it!

About

From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I write to synthesize what I'm learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my family in Hull, Massachusetts, where I'm originally from. Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research. 'Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?' was my first published piece at the age of 11.